Sealed With a Kiss (22 page)

Tess pulled Rachel off the stool. “Of course
she’s sure. Kelly has six brothers and sisters. If anyone can look
after an eight-year-old, it’s her.”

Rachel zipped her jacket to her chin. “Okay,
but we have to get back here within an hour. If John finds out that
I left the store, my name is going to be mud.”

“I hate to break the news to you,” Tess said.
“But John probably won’t care where you are. His main focus is on
Bella. Kelly will look after her if she comes into the store. We’ve
covered all bases.”

“Why don’t I feel as confident as you are?”
Rachel asked.

“Maybe because you’re closer to Bella than I
am?”

Rachel blinked back her tears. “Tank is
meeting John at the police station. Where should we start
looking?”

Tess buried her hands in her jacket pockets.
“I vote for starting at the café. We can work our way back to where
she left the SUV.”

Rachel turned to Kelly. “We won’t be more
than an hour.”

“I’ll see you when you get back. Good
luck.”

Rachel knew that they’d need more than luck
to find Bella. She just hoped she’d found somewhere safe and warm
to stay if she was lost.

The alternative wasn’t worth considering.

***

John sat in a black plastic chair in the
Chief of Police’s office. If Bella had been kidnapped, there was a
high probability that someone would contact him and demand a
ransom.

And John knew exactly what they’d want.

Dan Carter, the Chief of Police, walked into
the room. “We’ve checked the security cameras on Main Street. There
was no sign of Bella going past the craft store. Between your
security guards and my detectives, we’ve gone into every store
within half a mile of where she was last seen. No one’s seen
her.”

“If she was snatched off the street and
bundled into a vehicle, she could be miles from here by now.”

Dan looked up from the file he was holding.
“We’re doing everything we can to find her.”

John looked down at his hands. “I know. I
feel so useless just sitting here.”

“With the death threats you’ve already
received, you need to stay here. If we haven’t found Bella in the
next couple of hours, you can go home. But if I hear that you’re on
the streets looking for her, I won’t be happy.” Dan sat behind his
desk. “I know that a detective has already asked you these
questions, but I’m going to ask them again. Does Bella have any
places that she regularly visits in town?”

John crossed his arms in front of his chest.
“I’ve taken Bella to Angel Wings Café a few times. Mrs. Daniels, my
housekeeper, takes her to Safeway when she does the grocery
shopping, and Rachel has taken her to Walmart. She goes to the
library for drama club and to Denise Walker’s dance studio for
ballet class.”

“Friends?”

“Poppy O’Sullivan is her best friend. Bella
likes talking with Frankie Smith at drama club.”

“You didn’t mention Frankie’s name
before.”

John’s gaze shot to Dan. “Do you know
something that I don’t?”

Dan stood up and walked around his desk.
“I’ll be back in a few minutes. If your cell phone rings, let
Detective Adams know and we’ll try and trace the call.”

John watched Dan walk into the squad room and
talk to one of his detectives. He glanced at the phone on Dan’s
desk, then at his cell phone.

He needed to speak to Tank, and he needed to
do it now. John looked back at the squad room and leaned across the
desk, lifting the Police Chief’s phone off its cradle. He punched
Tank’s cell phone number into the handset and waited.

Dan was still talking to the detective.

“Tank speaking.”

“It’s John. I need you to look through the
background check you did on Frankie Smith’s family. Pull everything
you can on his father.”

“Sure. Is there anything in particular you
want me to check?”

“Find out why he left the police force.” Dan
was coming toward him. “I can’t talk and my cell phone is out of
commission. Call me on this number.” John hung up and sat back down
in his seat.

He might have been grasping at straws, but at
least it was more productive than sitting here doing nothing. If
Frankie’s father had anything to do with Bella’s disappearance,
he’d track him down and make sure he never hurt another child.

Dan walked into his office and frowned at
John. “Who did you call?”

“Would there be any point telling you that I
didn’t call anyone?”

“No. I traded my spare set of eyes for an
eagle-eyed duty officer.”

John looked into the squad room and a police
officer nodded at him. “I called Tank. We’ve already completed a
background check on Frankie’s family. I want to make sure we didn’t
miss anything. I’ll make sure you get a copy of the
information.”

Dan nodded. “I thought you’d want to know
that one of my officers saw Tess and Rachel in town. They’re
backtracking through the places that Bella could have gone.”

“On their own?”

“I don’t have any extra staff to go with them
and neither do you.”

John ran his hands through his hair. Today
had turned into the biggest nightmare of his life. He only hoped it
didn’t get worse.

***

Rachel lifted the lid on a big trash can
halfway down an alley. The smell of rotting garbage made her
stomach heave. “She’s not here.”

Tess looked behind a pile of old wooden
pallets. She pushed her hat out of her eyes and frowned at Rachel.
“If you were eight-years-old, where would you go?”

Rachel looked down the alley. “I wouldn’t go
here, that’s for sure. I don’t understand why she went into the
café when she wanted to go to the craft store.”

“What time did Bella jump out of Tank’s
SUV?”

Rachel wiped her hands on the side of her
jacket. “At about half-past one. Why?”

“I’m trying to work out if there was another
reason why she would have come into the café.”

“She wouldn’t have been hungry. We had a big
lunch before we went to Pastor Stevens’ house. And even if she was
hungry, Bella didn’t have any money with her.”

Tess started walking out of the alley. “Kelly
bought a sandwich from me. It would have been about the same time
that Bella was trying to get into the craft store. Kelly doesn’t
usually close for lunch, but it was so busy with the parade that
she didn’t have much choice. What if Bella ran to Kelly’s store and
the door was locked? Would she come into the café to wait for you
or talk to me?”

“She could have. She likes going to the café
and I know she enjoyed spending time with you at The Bridesmaids
Club. She would have known that Tank and I were going to be upset
with her. Maybe talking to you would have been her way of working
out what she was going to do next.”

Tess kept walking toward the café. “That
still doesn’t account for why she took her jacket off. She wouldn’t
have been in the café long enough to get hot.”

Rachel looked closely at the stores they were
passing. They’d already been into each and every one of them,
asking about Bella, finding out if they’d seen anything out of the
ordinary while the parade had been on.

Tess stopped and picked up a red button that
was lying on the sidewalk. “Does this belong to Bella?”

Rachel held the heart-shaped plastic button
in her hand. “No. Her jacket had a zip and she was wearing a pale
blue sweater underneath it.” She threw the button in the trash and
looked further down the street.

It was getting darker. In another hour, it
would be impossible to see anything without a flashlight. By now,
if Bella wasn’t somewhere warm, she would be in serious
trouble.

Tess hadn’t moved from where she’d found the
button. “You told me that Bella had a GPS tracking chip in her
jacket. Do the chips show you exactly where the person is?”

“Tank said it was accurate to within eight
feet.”

Tess’ eyes widened. “Did you look above the
café in my old apartment?”

Rachel nodded. “It was the first place we
went to after we’d checked the kitchen.”

Tess’ shoulders slumped forward. “I was so
sure we might have found her there. Out of everything we’ve talked
about, it makes the most sense.”

Rachel took a step toward Tess. A spark of
hope flared inside her. “We didn’t go inside the apartment. Tank
tried the door handle. It was locked tight.”

“The police asked me for the key. I told them
where the spare key should have been, but they couldn’t find it.
They couldn’t even find the magnetic box I keep it in.”

“Why would someone take the key?”

Tess shrugged her shoulders. “I don’t know.
The apartment’s empty, so there’s nothing to steal. And it’s
directly above the café, so I’d notice if someone was living there.
I could understand the key not being there if I’d forgotten to put
it in the box. But finding out that the whole box was missing was
odd.”

“How did the police get into the
apartment?”

“I gave them another key that I keep on my
key ring. It was still busy when they came and saw me, so I didn’t
go with them.” Tess started walking as quickly as she could along
the sidewalk. “We’ve got to go back to my apartment.”

Rachel joined her, getting more excited with
each step they took. “The police officers would have searched the
entire apartment. Why do you think Bella could still be there?”

“It’s an old building. There are plenty of
places an eight-year-old could hide.”

Rachel’s foot hit a patch of ice and Tess
grabbed her elbow. “Are you okay?”

“I’m trying not to get my hopes up,” Rachel
said as they power-walked their way down Main Street. “How would
she have gotten inside if the door was locked?”

Tess’ stride didn’t falter. “I’ve got a
theory on that. I’ll tell you after we’ve looked in the
apartment.”

They kept walking, catching each other when
they slipped on the ice, wiping soft snowflakes from their faces
when fresh snow fell. Rachel had assumed that Bella had been
kidnapped by the people that had sent John death threats. But what
if something else had happened? What if she’d gone to a place she
thought was safe?

She knew that finding Bella in Tess’
apartment was a long-shot. If she was inside, it would be a
miracle. But two hours after she’d first gone missing, Rachel knew
that a miracle was what they needed.

***

Rachel followed Tess up the back stairs to
her old apartment. Her heart was racing and her imagination was
working overtime. She crossed her fingers as Tess looked at where
the magnetic box should have been.

“How would Bella have known where to
look?”

“We talked about it when you came to The
Bridesmaids Club with Bella. You told me not to leave it here.”

“Even if the box was there, Bella couldn’t
have reached it,” Rachel said anxiously. “It’s too high.”

Tess pulled a metal key ring out of her
pocket. She chose a silver key and put it in the lock. “It’s only
too high if you’re standing on the landing. If the magnetic box was
there when Bella tried the door handle, she could have climbed on
the rail and reached it.”

Rachel looked over the edge of the landing at
the parking lot below. It was a long way down. If Bella had climbed
the rail, she could easily have slipped on the icy wood and fallen
onto the ground. “She must have been desperate to get inside.”

“I suppose it depends on why she was up here
in the first place.” Tess opened the door and walked inside. “I
left the electricity on, but the heating is switched off.” She
turned the lights on and started looking around the living
room.

Rachel walked into the center of the
apartment. “Bella? Are you here? It’s Rachel.” She waited before
moving into Tess’ old bedroom. “Bella?” still no reply. She looked
inside the empty closet, then opened the door to the bathroom.
There was no sign that anyone had been here. Apart from the sound
of Tess moving around in the next room, the apartment was clouded
in a silence as eerie as the snow flurries outside.

She walked back into the living room and
watched Tess open a cupboard along one of the walls. “I didn’t know
you had extra storage in here.”

Tess kneeled down and looked inside the small
space. “I renovated the building a few years ago. Because of the
slope of the ceiling, I ended up with a cavity running either side
of the apartment. My builder suggested lining the space and turning
it into storage areas. We hid the handles in the grooves of the
wooden paneling.”

Rachel walked further along the wall and ran
her hand along the same paneling that Tess had touched. Another
cupboard opened. The height and width of the space was only about
three foot, but it was big enough for an eight-year-old to hide in.
They searched each cupboard, but they were completely empty.

Tess walked toward what used to be her spare
bedroom. “I’ll look in this room, you take the other one.”

Rachel walked back into the bedroom she’d
left only minutes before. With the fancy wood detailing, she hadn’t
noticed the same grooves on the paneling in this room. “Bella?”

She opened the first door and sighed. The
second cupboard was exactly the same. Empty.

“Rachel? You need to come here quickly.”

Rachel ran into the spare bedroom and stopped
in the doorway.

Tess was kneeling in front of an open
cupboard. Bella was lying inside the cavity, sound asleep. “She’s
cold,” Tess whispered. “Do you think we should move her?”

Rachel unzipped her jacket and slipped it off
her shoulders. “We need to get her warm. We can’t do that inside
the cupboard. She knows us and it won’t be such a shock when she
wakes up.”

Rachel gently shook Bella’s shoulder. “Bella,
it’s Rachel. It’s time to wake up.”

Bella’s big brown eyes fluttered open, then
closed again.